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Él

Synopsis

Francisco is rich, rather strict on principles, and still a bachelor. After meeting Gloria by accident, he is suddenly intent on her becoming his wife and courts her until she agrees to marry him. Francisco is a dedicated husband, but little by little his passion starts to exhibit disturbing traits. Nevertheless, Gloria meets with scepticism as she expresses her worries to their acquaintances.

"Why would a fanatically jealous husband creep up on his sleeping wife clutching a bottle of anaesthetic and a needle and thread? In the gospel according to Buñuel, it's because he's a typical bourgeois male, terrified of female sexuality, projecting his own heavily repressed lusts on to every other male in sight. Buñuel examines him dispassionately, as a victim of himself and of the society that formed him; his story is neither a tragedy nor a comedy, but a necessary working out of certain moral and psychological tensions that are intrinsic in his class. The tone couldn't be further from the self-congratulation of an exercise like The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie." (Tony Rayns)

Perhaps because there's a disturbing scene in a tower, I found myself thinking of Vertigo as I watched this. Perhaps the overall aura of paranoia that this film has just put me in mind of Hitchcock in general. Not so much a thriller as an oppressive anti-romance, El (which is very difficult to search for on this site--just jumped to Bunuel's director page to grab it; I will forever complain about such trivial things) is the story of a dark symptom of patriarchy. It's about double standards.

From the way Francisco pursues Gloria from the start, it's clear that he's a bit of a creep. He treats her like a prize to be acquired, and once he acquires her, he…

The priest washes the boys feet as Don Francisco looks on... The montage places him next to catholicism and his upper class it transplants repression with his own strange passion that in order for this man to manipulate his estranged lover first he must manipulate his own soul. He cages his love. He is no longer the man he was and further apart from the man he is supposed to be he loses touch with his identity he loses a way to look at himself.

There’s no wit more severe than Luis Buñuel, aboard Freud’s train he envisions newlyweds poisoned by suspicion like a horrific anagram of Sturges’ comic honeymoon in The Lady Eve, that great forerunner of Vertigo. Before that, the camera briefly adopts the wandering eye of the wealthy, middle-aged bachelor (Arturo de Córdova) in church, panning ankle-level from the altar to the aisle and then tilting up from a pair of black pumps to reveal a demure beauty (Delia Garcés). Already engaged, she’s pursued into matrimony by this "perfectly normal and sensible man." (A clandestine kiss on a patio gives way to an explosion near a dammed river, a droll sledgehammer note.) The gentleman is respected by the institutions, romantic in his…

There are a lot of films about jealousy, but there's something particularly compelling about Él.

I wasn't entirely fond of its cheapish mid-century melodrama production values, and I still have issues with the jumpy, expository way Buñuel sometimes handles the passing of time. But otherwise this film became quite fascinating.

It's in the strong central performances and the way it makes both Francisco and Gloria sympathetic (though I speak as someone who's never had to cope with a pathologically jealous partner). Gloria is easy to care about, as she is a nice woman who falls for and is then victimised by a possessive man who sees threats to his relationship everywhere. Francisco is made very interesting in his reactions. Confronted…

Something seemed to be off-kilter in the rhythm of the movie, till I realized at least one scene had been edited out -- the copy I used this time didn't have the sequence with the bicycle on the butler's bed. I didn't notice anything else that was missing, but I'm not going to try for a full reading this time, because of that...

On first viewing, the thing that most stood out for me was the dance scene, where Francisco pushes his wife to 'be nice to' the lawyer and then lashes out at her for being TOO nice. Something about the shot where Francisco's watching them dance sold me on the idea that Francisco was imagining himself dancing with…

This is a bona fide classic, equal parts disturbing and hilarious. Arturo de Córdova kills it as Francisco, a jealous, pious scumbag who marries a woman that he lusts after in church (!) and proceeds to mentally torture, constantly accusing her of infidelity. When you step back and look at the premise, which is entirely about a man abusing his wife, it’s horrifying, yet Buñuel, that magnificent son of a bitch, packed so many laughs into it that it feels uniquely his. I rarely have the sensation of being both repulsed and delighted at the same time, but that’s Buñuel for you. The penultimate scene in the church has to rank among my favorite scenes from any film of his.

A very interesting study of a man who manages to be both magnetic and completely consumed with insecurities, violent urges, and, above all, a jealous paranoia. There's a nice Bunuel delusion near the end, and the whole thing is quite interesting, even if Gloria's decisions to stay with her murderous husband become unintentionally farcical.

Having gone through a few middling 50s Bunuel films, I figured I'd revisit El to see how it stacks up. First up, the pacing of Bunuel is always top notch. Scenes last as long as they need to and then it's onto the next thing. And those cuts between scenes are so well chosen. There are several spots where things someone else would have shown that Bunuel just waves away. (His use of this technique feels just about perfected by the time the movie Tristana hits) El is not a surrealist film in the way most people consider the type. This story of marital jealousy and insanity is very grounded and not weird simply to be weird. Tiny droplets of…

Something seemed to be off-kilter in the rhythm of the movie, till I realized at least one scene had been edited out -- the copy I used this time didn't have the sequence with the bicycle on the butler's bed. I didn't notice anything else that was missing, but I'm not going to try for a full reading this time, because of that...

On first viewing, the thing that most stood out for me was the dance scene, where Francisco pushes his wife to 'be nice to' the lawyer and then lashes out at her for being TOO nice. Something about the shot where Francisco's watching them dance sold me on the idea that Francisco was imagining himself dancing with…